Bench quest

January 1, 2017

The composition of the new bench by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar to hear the Panama Papers case has been received with approval from both the petitioners and the respondents, and this is indeed a good omen for the controversy ridden issue. The bench would be headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and there are high hopes from him for the timely resolution of the issue.

The Panama Papers controversy has remained a subject of great political divisiveness, and it has surfaced and resurfaced ever since it first landed on the political elite as a shocking incrimination of their ways less than a year ago. However, the issue has also showed how much Pakistan has progressed. Gone are the days when controversies involving the powerful could be lingered to the point that they could then just be brushed under the carpet. A vibrant media and a political party that, come what may, would not let the issue die down resulted in the Supreme Court hearing the issue itself. However, the same media then engaged in distasteful criticism of the outgoing Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali when he postponed the hearing of the case on December 9 since he was heading the bench and was set to retire on December 30. Then to make matters worse, the then incoming Chief Justice, Mian Saqib Nisar was made controversial through accusations on him of partisanship towards the ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. This was not just limited to the media, but even political leaders indulged in this unsettling point scoring.

However, amid all of this, it seemed lost on most that such discourse was putting at risk the sanctity of the highest court of the land. No interest or issue — even as significant as the Panama Papers — is worth politicising the judiciary. While it is true that the Panama Papers was a fundamentally political issue, and the judiciary’s offer to hear it was in fact an incursion into political matters. However, it is the Supreme Court that saved the country from the brink of a major political disaster, when the provincial machineries of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were pitted against each other. And once the proceedings had commenced, it were both the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the ruling party that brought forward unconvincing evidence and even stalled the court with irrelevant details. In this case, any hasty decision by the court would have engendered an even bigger crisis — not to say the disrepute that it would have brought upon itself.

Furthermore, by choosing to exclude himself from the new bench and forming one that has been acceptable for all concerned parties, Justice Nisar has upheld the cherished judicial principle of “justice should not just be done but also appeared to be done” while also silencing all of his detractors. Perhaps, this should act as precedence for all those who prematurely point fingers at the judiciary. *